Russia’s Resurgence & Its Strategic Impact on China

RUSSIA’S RESURGENCE & ITS STRATEGIC IMPACT ON CHINA

By Dr. Subhash Kapila

Introductory Observations

Russia’s contemporary resurgence to reclaim its pre-eminent global eminence in the same league as the United States and its strategic impact on global power dynamics stands analyzed in a series of SAAG Papers published earlier. The focus in these Papers was however on the strategic impact on the global power dynamics with special reference to the United States as the sole global predominant power.

In these Papers there was however one notable omission in that the strategic impact of Russia’s resurgence on China was not focused on. This was because in the previous Papers the focus was on examining the impact of Russia’s strategic resurgence on the global power play reinforced by the Russia-China Strategic Partnership.

Russia-China Strategic Partnership is not a given and cannot be taken as granted with enduring longevity. In the last 60 years China has strategically oscillated between Russia and the United States creating doubts about its strategic fidelity to either side.

Hence any analysis of Russia’s resurgence and its strategic impact on global power play would be incomplete without examining the China factor in these dynamics.

China’s strategic partnership with Russia emerged in the 1990’s in the wake of the disintegration of the Former Soviet Union. This is strategically significant in that it eloquently reflects China’s political impulses to enter into a strategic partnership with a greatly weakened Russia as the successor state of the Former Soviet Union.

China’s own strategic vulnerabilities in the 1990s were marked in that: (1) United States had emerged as the sole superpower with no countervailing rival (2) China’s RMA in terms of military upgradation had not taken place and (3) Gulf War I demonstrated to China, the “shock and awe” that United States awesome military power could unleash.

A politically weakened Russia with a shattered economy badly needed China as the prospective buyer of high value military hardware from Russia, whose economy then was mainly dependant on its extensive armaments production industrial infrastructure.

As the first decade of the 21^st Century is heading for a close, the strategic dynamics in the global power play have significantly changed. China’s strategic vulnerabilities still hover despite its rapid military modernization and upgradation. It has burgeoning economic resources to fuel an arms race with the United States but China has no sources for supply of advanced military hardware with an arms export embargo by the European Union in place.

Russia has gone slow in the last couple of years in releasing advanced military hardware to China with concerns rising within the Russian strategic establishment of China’s emergence as a possible threat to Russia’s security.

The most significant strategic change, however, is that Russia’s resurgence in the strategic and economic dimensions under President Putin’s presidency now accentuates the strategic asymmetry of Russia with China.

Russia can be said to be strategically better placed than China to play the global power game and the “China Card” is no longer strategically potent. At best, China and Russia need each other today more for political signaling to the United States than as a militarily effective countervailing coalition against the United States global predominance.

The Russia-China Strategic Partnership to which both nations continue to pay political deference can no longer cushion China from the strategic impact of Russia’s strategic and economic resurgence, which fuel a greater Russian strategic assertiveness.

As has been the style in this Author’s strategic and foreign policy analyses, the aim is not to present a research dissertation but only to focus selectively on illumination of salient facets of the theme under discussion which when taken as a whole complete the overall picture.

This Paper attempts to achieve the examination of the strategic impact on China of Russia’s resurgence by focusing on the following aspects, briefly:

Russia-China Strategic Partnership: A Contemporary Review

Russia’s Resurgence Objectives: The Impact on China

Russia’s Resurgence Restricts China’s Emergence as a Superpower

The Shanghai Cooperation Organization: A Marriage of Convenience

Russia’s Resurgence: China’s Option of Repeat of “Swing Strategy”

Russia-China Strategic Partnership: A Contemporary Review

The Russia-China Strategic Partnership was configured by both nations as a response to the prevailing global security environment of the 1990s and the respective national security interest perceptions of Russia and China in that period. This stands touched in this Paper’s initial stages itself.

Any contemporary review of the Russia-China Strategic Partnership today has to answer the basic question of whether the same set of strategic realities that prevailed then continue to operate today to form the glue that could continue to bind this partnership. The obvious answer is that it is not so.

In the strategic dimension, other than the common objective of keeping the United States out of Central Asia region, Russia and China do not seem to share any strategic convergences in other strategic regions of the world. Russian strategic initiatives in East Asia, South East Asia, South Asia and more importantly in the Middle East seem to run independently of any China component or content.

In terms of the military component of the Russia-China Strategic Partnership, Russia has visibly moved away from providing China with advanced and sophisticated Russian military hardware. The Russian economy is no longer dependent on high volume arms sales to China.

The joint military exercises between Russia and China in Central Asia and the Far East were token in nature. Russia was particular in projecting that these exercises were not specifically anti-US in conception which China wanted.

The Russia-China Strategic Partnership has not blossomed into any military alliance like NATO with integrated joint headquarters, command and control and communication systems.

The economic dimension of the Russia-China Strategic Partnership also does not present a rosy picture. President Putin was more keen to integrate Russia’s Far East Region’s economy with that of Korea and Japan.

Coming to the vital question of China’s energy security on which would depend China’s future global power aspirations, Russia once again seems to have favored Japan than China in terms of the alignment of Russian pipelines. Further Russia’s energy reserves are located in Western Siberia and closer to Europe than China. Russia’s pipelines configuration is more Europe-centric and Russia has not changed that configuration.

The Russia-China Strategic Partnership when reviewed in all the major dimensions that constitute a strategic partnership indicates no strong contours that bind or could bind both the countries.

Russia’s Resurgence Objectives: The Impact on China

Russia’s strategic resurgence objectives stand examined in this Author’s earlier Papers on the subject and it is not the intention to repeat those observations here, other than the most basic objective.

Russia’s strategic and economic resurgence was crafted by President Putin with the single most basic objective of putting Russia on the track of reclaiming her erstwhile status as the other superpower in the global power system and as an “independent power centre in global affairs”.

Implicit in the above objective is Russia’s intention to add qualitatively and quantitatively to her strategic assets in terms of new generation of ICBMs, SLBMs, nuclear attack submarines, strategic bombers, aircraft carriers and other force-projection capabilities. A formidable new generation Russian strategic arsenal is underway with more than $ 200 billion already committed from the rising oil revenues.

Russia’s intentions are not to prepare for a major war with the United States but to create a strategic force in being which could project Russia’s force presence globally which is an essential prerequisite of any re-emerging superpower.

The impact of Russia’s resurgence in strategic terms on China needs to be viewed at multiple levels, namely: (1) Overall military balance in East Asia (2) China’s own global ambitions (3) China’s own military modernization (4) China’s energy security prospects.

Russia’s strategic recession following the end of the Cold War had considerably changed the overall military balance in East Asia in favor of China. Russia's strategic assets and military presence in the Far East had shrunk and were militarily negligible and had reached such a low that it did not count in East Asia's military balance.

In the process, China was jettisoned to the status of being the only military peer competitor of the United States in East Asia despite the glaring strategic asymmetry of China with USA. China’s “strategic halo” was thus exaggerated in East Asia.

With Russia’s strategic resurgence the overall military balance in East Asia is likely to revert to the pre-1991 configurations. United States and Russia would once again become the lead players with China much lower in the pecking order.

Russia’s strategic and economic resurgence is not likely to add strength to the Russia-China Strategic Partnership. On the contrary all indicators would suggest that as Russia hits out at more independent trajectories, the strategic relevance to Russia of the Russia-China Strategic Partnership would gradually be diluted.

China dew great strengths from the Russia-China Strategic Partnership in terms of pursuance of her global aspirations. Russia’s resurgence and the consequent dilution of the Russia-China Strategic Partnership could make China’s task that much more harder in putting her global aspirations into effect.

The point already stands made that Russia’s supply of advanced military hardware to China is tapering off. It is not due to strategic reasons only but also because of Russian displeasure with China of violations of passing on such equipment to countries like Pakistan. Military modernization of China would consequently get restricted to its own indigenous capabilities.

Russia’s resurgence also has tangential effects on China’s energy security. It has to be viewed at two levels, namely (1) China’s access to Russian energy supplies (2) China’s access to Middle East energy supplies.

China’s access to Russian energy supplies is getting marginalized by Russia’s resurgence, both for strategic and financial reasons. The Russian focus here strategically is to leverage Russian oil supplies to Europe as Russia views Europe as a natural ally and also in relation to Russia-USA relations. In financial terms Europe pays full prices unlike China which demands discounted prices from Russia because of its partnership.

Russia's emerging strong strategic profile in the Middle East with oil-rich nations could limit Chinese leverages in the Middle East for its energy security.

Russia’s Resurgence Restricts China’s Emergence as a Superpower

Such an assertion in this Paper is likely to draw strong reactions from many in the Western strategic community long used to project China as the emerging superpower while consistently discounting or devaluing Russia.

Before one addresses this issue, what needs to be debated is whether the emerging world order is going to be bi-polar or multi-polar. China was the great protagonist of a multi-polar world for the last two decades but it did not take off because the strategic realities mitigated against it. With Russia’s strategic and economic resurgence the prospect of a multi-polar world recedes still further.

Then followed analyses from the global strategic community that China is going to emerge as the next superpower thereby conceding in the process that the emerging world order would essentially be a bi-polar world in strategic terms with China as the second pole with USA.. This line of analyses does not fully take into account the strategic realities and limitations of China.

That China would be a significant military power is conceded, but that it would emerge as the next superpower towards the end of this century is doubted. Russia was militarily stronger than China even when it lay prostate after the breakup of the Soviet Union. Its strategic assets were intact though its military capabilities may have needed honing as a result of neglect and shortage of funds.

Russia’s resurgence is bringing into shape a new and far more potent military machine. Russia’s nuclear warheads are comparable to those of the reigning superpower the United States both in terms of numbers and range. Russia has already commenced the projection of its strategic presence in the Pacific and the Atlantic.

China is nearly four decades behind in the global strategic power play even at current levels without discounting its vulnerabilities. In this time-span Russia with its current plans would be adding greater value to its strategic assets.

Russia's resurgence would in effect accentuate the already existing glaring strategic asymmetry of China with Russia.

Strategic analysis would therefore suggest that in the emerging bi-polar global order, China does not have the potential to emerge as the second pole to countervail the United States. Russia’s resurgence would ensure that Russia reclaims its erstwhile status as the other superpower in the global bipolar strategic calculus.

Bipolarity also necessarily implies that “the poles are singular” (emphasis mine) and that rules out the emergence of the European Union or the Shanghai Cooperation Organization as an alternate pole as some have suggested.

The Shanghai Cooperation Organization: A Marriage of Convenience

The SCO was a marriage of convenience between Russia and China that was designed to exclude or limit United States presence in Central Asia Adding Iran, Pakistan or even India as full members is not going to strengthen it.

Russia itself has strong reservations on China’s over-zealous strategic interest in Central Asia which Russia considers its own backyard. It is for this reason Russia has let the Russian-led “Collective Security Treaty Organization” (CSTO) stand as a superimposition on Central Asia’s security architecture. To be noted also is that China has not been made a member of CSTO which indicates that Russia wants to keep Central Asia as its exclusive preserve.

So what does the above suggest? It suggests that there is a divergent power play within the Russia-China Strategic Partnership itself. Taking it to a higher level it also suggests that strategic divergences at the global level between Russia and China can magnify further as the trajectory of Russia’s resurgence moves further ahead.

Russia’s Resurgence: China’s Option of Repeat of “Swing Strategy”

China so far has not officially come out with any reactions to Russia’s strategic and economic resurgence or expressions of any Chinese concerns thereon. However China could not but be concerned at the growing focus being given to Russia’s strategic resurgence and its implications.

China also could not but have noticed the changing nuances of Russia on the Russia-China Strategic Partnership which have been taken notice of in this Paper and elsewhere.

China within the last sixty years or so when faced with troubling strategic global challenges resorted to what is now termed as China’s propensity to resort to a “swing strategy” i.e. oscillating between Russia and USA.

In the 1960s it switched sides by deviating towards a quasi-strategic nexus with the United States to offset Russia’s growing strategic pressures and its adversarial equations with India. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, China switched back towards Russia when it became fearful of United States when faced with the emergence of United States as the sole superpower.

With historical precedents available China can expectedly resort to a “swing strategy” once again and gravitate towards the United States should China finds at some stage that Russia’s resurgence is severely impinging on its own global aspirations.

Its a different question whether the Untied States would consider it strategically wise to accept such a Chinese move.

Concluding Observations

The emerging global power structure presents two “constants” and one “variable”. The two “constants are (1) United States will continue to be the global strategically predominant power well into the 21^st Century and (2) Russia is in a resurgent mode signifying its intention to re-emerge as an independent power center.

The one “variable” is strategic forecasts on China’s standing in the future global power balance varying from being at best a regional power in East Asia to its emergence as the second superpower. The latter stands ruled out as a possibility by the discussion in this paper. The former is a strategic reality that both the United States and Russia have to face.

The existing Russia-China Strategic Partnership while being a good vehicle for political signaling does not promise any assurances that it could assist China in gaining the superpower status it covets. And why so when Russia itself is focused on regaining that status.

Russia’s strategic and economic resurgence suggests that it would limit in more ways than one the emergence of China as a super power.

China for far too long has been endowed with an over-exaggerated strategic halo and status far beyond her potential by US and Western analysts for reasons more political than strategic. Russia’s ongoing strategic and economic resurgence is gradually dispelling that myth.

Concluding, one would like to assert that unlike the United States and Russia, China presents no potential of emerging as an “independent power center” having its own constellation of like- minded nations on which it could rely to add to her strategic strength and clout in the global power play.

(The author is an International Relations and Strategic Affairs analyst. He is the Consultant, Strategic Affairs with South Asia Analysis Group. Email:drsubhashkapila@yahoo.com)